DOE-Funded Company Launches One-Click Service for Determining If a Home or Commercial Building Can Benefit from Solar Energy

With only a street address and a mouse click, property owners and solar companies in Arizona can now instantly find the solar energy potential of a home or commercial property at www.sunnumber.com. The service from Sun Number, which is free to consumers, has just been made available in the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas. Developed with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot initiative, this first-of-its-kind service makes it possible for anyone in this region to obtain an immediate assessment of how suitable a building is for solar. The assessment provides a Sun Number Score between 1 and 100 as well as other easy-to-understand information that explains how much a building can benefit from installation of solar on the rooftop.

Sun Number for Property Owners
For homeowners and other property owners, this website provides a free, instantaneous analysis that allows property owners to turn their curiosity about solar energy into practical information about how much money they can save in utility costs by installing solar panels. The site also offers to connect the property owner with a local solar provider that can discuss solar solutions in more detail with no obligation to buy. The service was developed with funding from a DOE program designed to educate the public about solar energy and broaden adoption of the technology nationwide.

“If you’ve ever wondered how much you could save by having solar on the roof of your home or commercial building, now you can have an instant answer to that question. Just type in the address at sunnumber.com and it gives you a Sun Number Score that explains how solar-friendly a building is and how much a property owner can save in utility costs per year,” said David Herrmann, co-founder of Sun Number. “Arizona has ideal conditions for the use of solar energy, and now it’s incredibly easy to find out just how solar-friendly your property is.”

Sun Number has determined that the Phoenix metro area could generate enough electricity with rooftop solar panels to meet all of its electricity needs. The analysis shows that buildings in the Phoenix metro area could generate more than 22 Twh (22,000,000 kwh), which exceeds estimated current electricity consumption of electricity (approx. 21 Twh).*

Sun Number for Solar Companies
For solar companies in Arizona, Sun Number provides an instant, accurate analysis of a property’s solar potential that can be accessed in real time during the very first conversation with a customer. This is dramatically faster and less expensive than the traditional method, which required solar companies to send a truck to the property for an employee to conduct a rooftop assessment. That process not only ties up the employee for half a day of on-site work but often slows down the consultation process with the customer by several days.

Herrmann added, “Using Sun Number can save a solar company hundreds or even thousands of dollars of soft costs on a project, and it can shave days or weeks off the sales process. The information we provide with just an address and a click is highly accurate thanks to high-resolution aerial data, mapping software and advanced algorithms that take into account factors such as foliage and shade. By providing an accurate solar analysis that eliminates the need to send a truck to the property, Sun Number accelerates the sales process and dramatically increases each project’s profit margin. It is a must-have tool for solar companies.”

To get an instant analysis of your property or your customer’s property, visit www.sunnumber.com.

*Methodology: Sun Number calculated the total solar suitable rooftop square footage of every building in the Phoenix metro coverage area using a conservative methodology. Solar suitable square footage does not include portions of roofs that are pitched to the north or that do not get at least 4 hours of sunlight per square meter in an average day. The solar square footage also does not include any portion of the roof where solar is not allowed because of offsets (around the edge of the roof for instance). The solar suitable square footage is then reduced by an additional 15% to provide additional margin in our calculations. With that estimate of solar suitable rooftop square footage completed, Sun Number used the DOE NREL solar calculator – PV Watts – to estimate the amount of solar radiation/square foot in Phoenix AZ using a conservative 15% efficiency for PV panels. Multiplying these two numbers (suitable square footage x solar radiation/square footage) provided the total amount of electricity that could be created if PV panels covered all of the solar suitable rooftop square footage.

About Sun Number
Sun Number, LLC is accelerating the adoption of solar energy technology across the United States by providing solar providers and property owners with instant assessments of the solar potential of homes and buildings. With a single click, Sun Number provides an analysis of how solar-friendly a home or building is, using a methodology that factors in everything ranging from sun exposure to regional climate to foliage. This produces a Sun Number Score that provides information that solar companies can use to shorten the sales cycle and that property owners can use to understand how much they can benefit from solar power. Sun Number, LLC was founded in 2012 with a SunShot Initiative award from the U.S. Department of Energy, which supports emerging companies broadening adoption of solar energy technology. For more information about Sun Number, visit www.sunnumber.com.